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Apple Issues Invitations for January 27th Media Event

Retail price: we have cost estimates to work with

Yixian said:
$400-$600 on launch and you've got an instant game changer. The thing would be everywhere in a few months, everywhere. The vast majority of publishers would start producing versions of their mags for the tablet.

$600-800 and you have a slow burn, only really taking off a year later if Apple drops the price.

$800-1000 Apple would still sell a bunch and the device would have a lot of publicity, but sales would be restricted really only to the Apple faithful, publishers would be slow to provide their stuff on the store and by the time Apple dropped the price low enough for mass consumption a lot of the buzz would have fizzled out and competitors would have jumped on board. Apple would no doubt still be the market leader but with a much smaller percentage and in a much less spectacular way.


not to mention the second Steve says $800-1000, Apple stock on the 27th will fall very, very sharply.
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This article says the materials cost of a 10" tablet will push the retail price over $1000.

The article may be wrong about the materials costs. Or, the tablet won't be the thing we all think it will.

http://surfacecomputernews.com/rumors-emerge-that-apple-tablet-is-delayed/
 
Yixian said:
Pretty sure that the paint theme just alludes to the "behold my latest creation!" phrase cliché of a painter and his latest work of art etc.

Rather than saying anything about the actual product haha..
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That would be classic - Jobs pulls a Dr. Weird on the stage.

"Gentlemen - behold! Am I not INVISIBLE?" :)
 
Carniphage said:
My guess is the exact opposite.

Content creators need powerful applications,

If you look at the ad, it does not scream "professional", it resembles other iPod advertising imagery. And even the colors precisely match the colors of the current iPod Nano range.

C.
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Apps like sketchbook don't require powerful kit, I think of it more like a sketchpad for artists, great for ideas on the move IMO.

I dont think it would be great for pro apps, too many palletes for a small screen.
Just give me a decent portable painting/sketch app/device and i can take the roughs to my desktop later.
 
I call it's an Apple iBot, a personal robot assistant for the new generation. And judging by the graphic...I would say it paints too!


JK, it's probably a release of the iPod Hi-Fi in new colors. ;)
 
Yixian said:
Pretty sure that the paint theme just alludes to the "behold my latest creation!" phrase cliché of a painter and his latest work of art etc.

Rather than saying anything about the actual product haha..
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Good point. Maybe everyone's taking it too literal.
 
Rorschach test ...

What fun, show people a random inkblot and ask them what they see.

My guess? note the subtle apple in the centre, this hints at the prduct name it'll be called Pippin, or Russet (perhaps Egremont, the finest apple of them all) or maybe Granny ...

It's always amusing to revist these threads when the announcement has been made to see how wild some of the guesses were.
 
chgough said:
Hi - this may be just 'me' - but as soon as saw the invitation for 27 January, I thought that the paint splats represented the attempts made by other manufacturers to produce a 'tablet' and the dead centre 'mustard' splat represented Apple 'cutting the mustard' or being 'the proper mustard' i.e. 'the real thing' (apparently an old cowboy phrase).
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I think you need to get yourself a hobbie or a girlfriend even.
 
I think it will be funny if this turns out to be just a new photoshop competitor for iLife 2010. This is what the invitation is telling us, and is consistent with past invites. The "tablet" has been rumored since the day the newton was killed.
 
Potential here...

There is real potential for this device if it is capable of more than e-reading and other content consumption Besides these passive pursuits and the already discussed possibilities of a Wacomesque drawing pad, I envision the following as being worthwhile for such a product:

It could be a control surface for a desktop or laptop for mouse intensive (or keyboard-shortcut-intensive) programs such as Pro Tools, Finale, Sibelius, Photoshop, iLife, iWork, MS Office, etc. The iPhone could have had a bit of this potential but its small screen coupled with Apple's refusal to free up the USB connection never allowed this to be realized.
Just googling "programmable keyboard" brings up a host of interesting and hitherto expensive or "one-trick" products, many of which could be replaced with a ten inch touch tablet. Apps could take care of connecting to various desktop applications for a fraction of the cost. Of course the prerequisite here would be a freed-up USB connection!

Its stand-alone use as a creative tablet has been much discussed from netbook-like content creation to ersatz textbooks, media consumption, etc. Also its use in the health care industry has been speculated about extensively. Additionally educators would find such a tool useful for record-keeping and gradebook use as well as presentation (again dependent on the tablet's capability of connecting in some way to a projector or a smart board.

The possibilities will only be limited by Apple's potential restrictions and our imaginations.
 
Peace said:
I will..

Visualize. A commercial in black and white.

A 1940's style diner. Everybody and everything is in black and white.

A person walks in with the ******* and sits down. It's in color. The person starts to read the New York Times. In full color.

Everybody in the diner gathers around to look at it.

Great creativity. Taught in Creative Art 201.


And that's about when the first color TV's came out. Late 40's to early 50's.
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Wasnt Apple rumored to have made a commercial just like this in August? I'm 99.9% sure there was a thread about this on Macrumors! I think you have it!
 
Potential here continued...

The tablet could also serve as the dongle for expensive copy-protected programs, allowing a licensed user to travel with his or her license to various workstations (such as different recording studios, etc.).

Additionally for the sake of price and sales, I hope the tablet will work for the poor folks in the windoze arena...
 
joemama said:
An automatic Jackson Pollock painting machine? Sweeeeeet!
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Apple Buys AT&T or a majority share to call its own shots for tv, internet, wireless and land line, making Apple the ultimate corporation. move the :apple: logo and underneath it is the AT&T logo which represents Apple taking over the helm!
 
lazyrighteye said:
"Creations" is singular.
No iLife, MBP, nada.
100% tablet.
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I think you meant to type what APPLE wrote: "Creation",... which is singular.

However, every Apple keynote known to Man has included other information about Apple so we'll hear all about Billions songs sold and the Billion apps downloaded.

While I don't think MBP will be update, I think iLife is a no-brainer as it will be a selling point on the tablet. Why would they just stick iLife '09 on there, especially when '10 would be close? Just wrap it up and load it on and tout the hell out of it. We all know there will tablet-specific things that iLife can do to also entice Mac owners to buy another Apple device.

Macworld 2007 had Steve announcing all kinds of things with the Phone not even being mentioned until 30 minutes into the address.

We'll hear a lot on the 27th.
 
t0mat0 said:
Kenrkraft -

I'd agree, youve got effects from vertical, and horizontal positions of the canvas. But more than that - these effects aren't blobs from a paintbrush touching the canvas - they seem more like blobs of paint coming from "flicking" paint onto , or dropping paint onto a canvas.
i.e. at a distance, without having to physically touch the canvas (if we're thinking this symbolises the touchscreen). Which would suggest gestures at a distance, i.e. control without contacting the screen with a finger.

Maybe it's just pretty art work ;)

I could see Apple exploring the z dimension in the OS, using iTunes LP style formatting for apps, it's own Tablet store section...
Click to expand...

I think you're really on to something. We've heard rumors of a new, innovative way to interface with the device. What if you didn't even have to touch the screen? Or, maybe touching the screen becomes the click. When using a Wacom tablet, you hover the pen over the surface to navigate the pointer, and press to click.

What if the tablet knew how far your hands were from the device and detected motion on the Z-axis? Then, the ad makes perfect sense. A faster flick of a hand would result in a bigger splatter of paint. When the device is oriented vertically, it knows it, and the paint begins to run down as if it were a real canvas.

This would make an awesome demo of the tech, and this is what makes the most sense from all of the theories I've heard about the invitation. Hype rising!

Minority Report, here we come!
 
t0mat0 said:
I'd agree, youve got effects from vertical, and horizontal positions of the canvas. But more than that - these effects aren't blobs from a paintbrush touching the canvas - they seem more like blobs of paint coming from "flicking" paint onto , or dropping paint onto a canvas.
i.e. at a distance, without having to physically touch the canvas (if we're thinking this symbolises the touchscreen). Which would suggest gestures at a distance, i.e. control without contacting the screen with a finger.
Click to expand...

This is probably where multi-touch we've never seen before will come into play, ie tap with four fingers to throw the paint at the canvas (in just one app, in another it might do something completely different).

Anyway, I envisage Jobs on stage walking around with it in one hand while tilting it and gesturing on it with his other hand to make it do things we don't expect. Remember when he flicked the iPhone list at the launch with his fingertip and it continued scrolling? How simple that seems now but at the time it drew gasps and applause from the audience.
 
epo said:
My guess? note the subtle apple in the centre, this hints at the prduct name it'll be called Pippin, or Russet (perhaps Egremont, the finest apple of them all) or maybe Granny ..
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They already used the Pippin name for the short-lived game console.

Actually because the iPod was named after the pod bay doors in 2001, the tablet is very fiction-becomes-fact of the flatscreen newspaper the astronaut was reading. It was called the Newspad.
 
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